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7 truths you need to know about Klout

Outside of the bubble occupied by bloggers and social media specialists, Klout is largely irrelevant. And yet within that bubble it is something many worry about a great deal, particularly in parent blogging circles where it is one of the eight components of the Tots100 rankings.

And yet this system for ranking an individual’s online influence is poorly understood, with lots of false myths circulating among bloggers.

So here are seven facts about how Klout works and some pointers for improving your score, based on current information from both the Klout website and an academic paper published by the Klout team themselves last year.

1. What your score means

Anyone who registers with Klout and links at least one of its measured social networks to it is assigned an individual score between one and 100 which is updated daily (usually, but not always, around 4pm UK time).

Klout is a measure of a user’s social ‘influence’ – their ability to transmit messages across global networks – based on 3,600 different factors collected from nine platforms for 750 million users. The average score is 40, Barack Obama’s is 99, Rihanna 94, David Cameron 92 and Mark Zuckerberg a lowly 85. More realistically, a score of 63 puts you in the top 5% of all users.

It’s worth noting the scoring system is not linear, so it’s harder to improve your score from 50 to 60 than from 40 to 50.

2. What networks influence your score?

Klout takes a variety of measures from seven popular social networks plus Wikipedia and Lithium Communities (which includes Klout itself – you can ‘give Klout’ to other users recognising their expertise on selected topics). They will soon be adding Bing.

Klout also allows you to register other accounts such as Tumblr, WordPress, Pinterest and Flickr. These are for the purposes of providing links in your personal profile only – none of them contribute to your Klout score.

3. Adding networks to Klout CANNOT reduce your score

This is the single biggest myth associated with Klout, with many bloggers claiming that adding more social networks led to a reduction in their score (or, conversely, that removing some added to their score).

It is clearly stated on Klout’s website that your score is made up from the accumulation of all your networks’ scores and not, say, an average. So adding your little-used LinkedIn account will, at worst, have a minimal but positive impact on your score.

4. What factors drive my Klout score?

Klout prioritises user interactions over volume. It’s not about how often you post but about how successful your content is at attracting likes, shares and comments.

So posting 20 tweets a day that no one engages with has a lesser impact than posting one tweet that is RT’d 20 times. Similarly, receiving 100 likes across ten Facebook posts counts for more than 100 likes across 1,000 posts.

The exact factors measured vary from network to network. You can find out more by hovering over the individual social media icons at the bottom of this page on the Klout site.

5. Timing is everything (well, mostly)

Klout measures its various signals on a daily basis across seven different time periods, ranging from three to 90 days. This has a number of implications on the way the score is calculated, such as:

Your Klout score is recalculated daily, so activity from today will not count until tomorrow.

If you have a ‘big’ day today, it may not have as big an impact as you might think, as Klout is taking up to three months’ data into account.

Impact decays over time. Something you did two days ago carries a greater weight than something you did two weeks ago, which in turn scores more than something you did two months ago.

Fluctuations in your daily score can be driven as much by the ‘ageing’ of old activity as it is by what you did yesterday. This means your score can go up and down seemingly at random from day to day.

One additional note. A number of factors which influence your score are not time-dependent. Some of these are obvious: Twitter and Instagram followers, YouTube subscribers, Facebook page likes and so on. Others are less obvious: your education level and job title (both taken from LinkedIn) also influence your score.

6. Not all interactions are created equal

There used to be a display on your personal Klout page that attributed a score of between one and five to your social media posts depending on the number of interactions. This suggested that simple volume of engagements was the key measure.

This isn’t true. It’s more sophisticated than that.

Klout attributes differing weights to interactions based not only on recency as discussed above but also on the characteristics of the people who interact with you. For instance, being retweeted by Barack Obama counts for more than being RT’d by Joe Bloggs.

In a similar vein, Klout also suggest that an interaction from someone who doesn’t like or retweet other people’s content often is worth more than one from someone who likes or retweets everything.

Finally, 100 interactions from 100 different people count for more than 100 interactions from the same person. This rewards people who influence a wide sphere of other users and reduces the impact of people who try to ‘game’ the system by liking or sharing every post they make from a second account.

7. It’s all about content (and a little bit of luck)

By now, you have hopefully understood that the mechanics behind Klout are complex, hard to understand and not easily manipulated.

So what is the secret to success on Klout? Fundamentally, it comes down to posting high quality, relevant content, as this is what drives all those likes, shares and comments.

Here are a few additional tips:

Forget what some people say: connect all your networks, even ones you don’t use often. Every little helps.

It’s better to focus on being brilliant at one or two social networks rather than being mediocre at everything. Barack Obama doesn’t have a score of 99 because he’s posting to Foursquare and Google+.

Remember, quality not quantity! Just as one brilliant photo is worth more than 100 blurry ones, 2-3 great tweets per day will boost your score more than forcing out 100 a day just to fill a self-imposed quota.

Interact with key influencers in your field (i.e. those with high Klout scores). Engage in conversation, share their content and make yourself known to them – but be sensible and don’t overdo it. No one likes to feel they are being spammed or manipulated. And don’t focus solely on the big names to the exclusion of everyone else. It’s easier to spot sycophantic brown-noses than you might think.

Invest a little extra time in liking and sharing other people’s content (but, again, don’t overdo it). It doesn’t increase your score directly but it makes it more likely they will like or share you in return, which does boost your score.

Sometimes you may just get lucky, when a key influencer such as a celebrity shares your tweet or a Facebook post goes viral. Enjoy the boost – but remember it only counts in Klout for 90 days.

Above all, enjoy what you do. Building your Klout score should never be your primary reason for being on social media. Focus on quality, enjoy interacting with others and watch as your Klout score grows all on its own.

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It’s interesting what happens when you add all your networks. In most cases the impact is negligible – not surprising, as you’re tending to add your least used platforms anyway. But I did see noticeable boosts when I added LinkedIn (which I use a fair bit) and YouTube (whcih I barely use at all) – immediate jumps of 1-2 points which, given that my score hovers pretty consistently in the high 60s, was definitely noteworthy. But when I added Foursquare (where I add tips about once a month, if that), no impact at all – no great surprise there. Let me know if you see any notable change. Often people do see their scores drop, but that tends to be a coincidence rather than cause-and-effect.

This is a really interesting insight into Klout – thank you! I’m very surprised that my education and job title on Linked In also have an impact. I haven’t linked my Linked In profile as I’m cautious when Klout says it will post on your behalf. Has that ever happened to you Tim?

Klout never posts to user accounts – there’s some blurb on their site that states as much. The only reason they ask for permissions to your accounts is so they can gather the data they need to calculate your score.

The LinkedIn factors are a bit esoteric but having said that their Social Selling Index (SSI), which is essentially ‘Klout for LinkedIn’, also takes those same factors into account, so at least they’re consistent.

Really interesting post. I feel like I understand Klout a lot better now! I haven’t linked up all my networks so I need to look at that. Also very interested to read about LinkedIn and how you are rated on qualifications etc. I haven’t inputted any of that information but I’m not sure that I will and I don’t like how Klout gives you score on your qualifications etc. Is that right? Have I understood that right?

Job title and qualifications are just two of the many ‘signals’ Klout takes into account – just as LinkedIn uses those same two factors in their own ranking mechanism. But bear in mind that Klout takes into account 3,600 factors every day, so no one or two individual factors make a tangible difference to your score. It won’t harm your score to include them in your LinkedIn profile – but it won’t make a big difference either way either.

Hi Tim, thanks for another informative and easy to understand post. I’m aware of Klout but to be honest I’m still at the stage where I’m trying to figure out what the hell Google+ is all about 🙂 I know, hopeless! Come to think of it I bet you have a post on that… 🙂 #brillblogposts

To br honest it feels like a ball ache. I love spontaneous and just going with the flow. I find it depressing when it is centres around time. But that is my choice and appreciate others are different and more calculated. I love the more of the cuff posts done in the moment that is more striking X #brilliantblogposts

I’m not sure the two need to be mutually exclusive. Most bloggers are vaguely aware of Klout as something that influences ranking scores. I’m a bit of a geek in that I like to understand these things (plus I work in social media, so it’s kind of my job to know these things). But I’ve never written anything with the purpose of trying to increase my score, and I doubt many bloggers consciously do that either. But I am conscious of the fact that I need to write good content people will appreciate it if I want them to read it and that’s the key driver for me. An increased Klout score is a result of producing better content, rather than writing better content in order to build a score.

The reality is that there is no effort involved in increasing your Klout score other than writing well and engaging with your audience.

No problem, Claire – glad it’s helped. I don’t think anyone should feel bad about their Klout score. Personally I find it a good yardstick by which to measure whether I am engaging effectively with my audience – it satisfies my competitive streak to do better than I did previously – and any benefit it has elsewhere is just a bonus. Having said that, I don’t think my score has fluctuated by more than plus or minus one for over a year. I’m stuck!

Well, it does feed your Tots100 ranking (if that sort of thing matters to you). And I find it a helpful benchmark to see whether I’m maintaining a good level of engagement with my audience. But, in truth, all you need to do is set up an account, link your networks and then just leave it be.

I was really confused about Klout and how it worked – this makes it so much clearer. I’m not sure I can be bothered worrying too much about my score, though – at the end of the day, what matters is that I’m happy with my blog and its content. #PoCoLo

Once you’ve registered your accounts you’re basically good to go. I check in on my score occasionally out of interest to see whether I’m maintaining/increasing my score, but essentially I just leave it to do its stuff.

This is such a useful post, Klout completely baffles me and I must admit I didn’t really understand the point of using it. Thank you for sharing this info and educating me, I’m off to link up my accounts!

The reality is (for parent bloggers at least) that it’s only because it forms part of the Tots100 that so many people care about it. I find it an interesting yardstick to measure whether I am influencing and engaging effectively across social media but it doesn’t change my behaviour at all. It just is what it is.

Hi Tim, I’m still getting my head around Klout and your post has helped explain a little more to me, although I really don’t see why education level and job title should influence a score! Seems a little wrong to me, but then what do I know?

Thank you for this post! It’s very interesting to read a bit more about the ins and outs of klout. I found that after adding another network my score bumped itself up a bit unexpectedly. It helps to be able to relate the scores to well known people. #TheList

Whenever I’ve added a network, I’ve been surprised by how much it tends to boost my score, even though I may not be particularly active on it. I got a nice little boost from YouTube, even though I get the merest trickle of views from it.

Thanks for this insight. I wasn’t aware I could link up accounts like Pinterest as they’re not part of the score. I did take to heart a tweet from someone at a blogger conference recently who had heard in a lecture that giving someone a Klout has no influence on, for example, your Tots score. Is this true? I tend to only do it if someone has the Klout on their sidebar. I should probably put it on mine for this reason (if only I knew how!). #TheList

The giving of Klout doesn’t directly influence your score – however, receiving Klout from others does. And people are more likely to give you Klout if you give the Klout, so indirectly it often does have an impact.

Thanks so much for this understandably I stayed away from social media while having Kipper and its knocked my score which I’m struggling to get back up to the 70s the fact that it will take 3 months to exit my figures makes me feel better as there’s a reason! Thank you 🙂 #TheList

As I said in the post, it’s the biggest urban myth about Klout – and one which many people perpetuate not realising the truth. Some people really agonise over the fact that their score goes down when they think it should be going up, but the reality is that it is driven by a very complex set of calculations and it’s best not to worry about the fine detail of it. If you’re doing the right sorts of things and engaging with your audience and key influencers well, your score will improve over time, even though it may fluctuate a bit strangely on certain days.

Thanks for this, Tim. I had only added my FB page at first so I have just added my networks, so hopefully this should bump it a little. I’m still not entirely sure what the benefit is of it though, would one use this when in a dialog with a PR/Brand?
Thanks again,
Lara

I’ve never been asked for my Klout score by a PR/brand. It’s only really important to parent bloggers because Klout is one of the metrics used to calculate Tots rankings – that is of some relevance to PRs, but many don’t ever ask for your ranking anyway.